http://www.nehrlich.com/blog/2004/10/24/the-animal-who-tells-stories/ Eric Nehrlich, Unrepentant Generalist Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:24:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 http://www.nehrlich.com/blog/2004/10/24/the-animal-who-tells-stories/comment-page-1/#comment-15590 Eric Nehrlich, Unrepentant Generalist || Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath || February || 2007 Wed, 14 Feb 2007 03:34:17 +0000 /?p=115#comment-15590 [...] They looked at different advertising campaigns, from the Jared diet at Subway to “Don’t Mess with Texas”, and tried to extract the common themes and elements that they saw. Their acronym for what makes an idea sticky is SUCCESs: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional and Story. You have to have a core idea that can be expressed in a single sentence or phrase. If you can’t boil it down to something that simple, it will never stick. It has to be unexpected and surprising - our brains are “wired to remember the abnormal and outlandish because they break the routine patterns that we have learned”. It must be concrete, because humans each interpret abstractions differently - only by making an idea specific and concrete can you assure that it will be remembered and passed on unchanged. It must be credible - if it is not easily verifiable, it will be dismissed as outlandish. Emotions play a strong role in memory, so it’s not surprising that ideas that evoke emotions are more sticky. And my favorite topic, stories, make ideas sticky because we remember stories as exemplars of patterns that matter to us. [...] [...] They looked at different advertising campaigns, from the Jared diet at Subway to “Don’t Mess with Texas”, and tried to extract the common themes and elements that they saw. Their acronym for what makes an idea sticky is SUCCESs: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional and Story. You have to have a core idea that can be expressed in a single sentence or phrase. If you can’t boil it down to something that simple, it will never stick. It has to be unexpected and surprising – our brains are “wired to remember the abnormal and outlandish because they break the routine patterns that we have learned”. It must be concrete, because humans each interpret abstractions differently – only by making an idea specific and concrete can you assure that it will be remembered and passed on unchanged. It must be credible – if it is not easily verifiable, it will be dismissed as outlandish. Emotions play a strong role in memory, so it’s not surprising that ideas that evoke emotions are more sticky. And my favorite topic, stories, make ideas sticky because we remember stories as exemplars of patterns that matter to us. [...]

]]> http://www.nehrlich.com/blog/2004/10/24/the-animal-who-tells-stories/comment-page-1/#comment-12550 Eric Nehrlich, Unrepentant Generalist || Patterns, stories and communities || December || 2006 Sat, 30 Dec 2006 20:04:01 +0000 /?p=115#comment-12550 [...] My thesis of the day is that the general patterns I was talking about are stories. I circle back to the topic of stories pretty regularly, as I find that stories are extremely powerful patterns that our brains are structured to absorb. For instance, I regularly tell stories that I don’t know the origin of; I don’t remember where I read or heard the story or even many of the specific details, but the general pattern of the story itself was memorable and sticks with me. I think the reason for that is that our brains are wired to remember patterns, not details, and our predilection for stories reflects that. [...] [...] My thesis of the day is that the general patterns I was talking about are stories. I circle back to the topic of stories pretty regularly, as I find that stories are extremely powerful patterns that our brains are structured to absorb. For instance, I regularly tell stories that I don’t know the origin of; I don’t remember where I read or heard the story or even many of the specific details, but the general pattern of the story itself was memorable and sticks with me. I think the reason for that is that our brains are wired to remember patterns, not details, and our predilection for stories reflects that. [...]

]]> http://www.nehrlich.com/blog/2004/10/24/the-animal-who-tells-stories/comment-page-1/#comment-11762 Eric Nehrlich, Unrepentant Generalist || Patterns and truth || December || 2006 Sun, 03 Dec 2006 02:44:37 +0000 /?p=115#comment-11762 [...] To be an effective communicator, you have to be able to put things in terms that your listener will understand. Whether you want to call it sales or framing or storytelling, putting the ideas together into the right pattern is what lets us get our point across to our listener. This is important because better communication is what connects us and lets us create bigger achievements than any of us could achieve on our own. Being able to bridge the gap between people’s minds is at the root of a lot of problems I see around me, from management screwups to politics to discrimination. [...] [...] To be an effective communicator, you have to be able to put things in terms that your listener will understand. Whether you want to call it sales or framing or storytelling, putting the ideas together into the right pattern is what lets us get our point across to our listener. This is important because better communication is what connects us and lets us create bigger achievements than any of us could achieve on our own. Being able to bridge the gap between people’s minds is at the root of a lot of problems I see around me, from management screwups to politics to discrimination. [...]

]]> http://www.nehrlich.com/blog/2004/10/24/the-animal-who-tells-stories/comment-page-1/#comment-3418 Eric Nehrlich, Unrepentant Generalist || Persistent Patterns || August || 2006 Thu, 10 Aug 2006 03:26:49 +0000 /?p=115#comment-3418 [...] Another area in which I’ve noticed this phenomenon of pattern reactivation is with books. When I pick up a book that I’m only partly through (which right now I have way too many of), if it’s a good book, it’s really easy for me to get back into it. Good sci-fi or fiction will carry me along and suck me right back into the story (I lent my coworker my copy of Sources of Power, and she reminded me of his description of stories as encoding patterns that we have learned and are trying to teach others, which reminds me of my thoughts about stories. Anyway.), which reactivates the patterns. Really bad books are the opposite, such as Shadow Puppets, where I had to re-read several chapters before realizing I’d already read it. [...] [...] Another area in which I’ve noticed this phenomenon of pattern reactivation is with books. When I pick up a book that I’m only partly through (which right now I have way too many of), if it’s a good book, it’s really easy for me to get back into it. Good sci-fi or fiction will carry me along and suck me right back into the story (I lent my coworker my copy of Sources of Power, and she reminded me of his description of stories as encoding patterns that we have learned and are trying to teach others, which reminds me of my thoughts about stories. Anyway.), which reactivates the patterns. Really bad books are the opposite, such as Shadow Puppets, where I had to re-read several chapters before realizing I’d already read it. [...]

]]> http://www.nehrlich.com/blog/2004/10/24/the-animal-who-tells-stories/comment-page-1/#comment-3301 Eric Nehrlich, Unrepentant Generalist || Mike Murray on Hacking the Mind || July || 2006 Sat, 22 Jul 2006 13:14:46 +0000 /?p=115#comment-3301 [...] Another technique was injecting your own code to be run in somebody else’s brain. That means understanding the unconscious brain, which he says is all about patterns (shades of On Intelligence) and stories (I love stories). I loved the description of Milton Erickson (who I have to read now): “You walked into his office and sat down. Then, Milton told you a story and you found yourself changing.” That sounds so cool. [...] [...] Another technique was injecting your own code to be run in somebody else’s brain. That means understanding the unconscious brain, which he says is all about patterns (shades of On Intelligence) and stories (I love stories). I loved the description of Milton Erickson (who I have to read now): “You walked into his office and sat down. Then, Milton told you a story and you found yourself changing.” That sounds so cool. [...]

]]> http://www.nehrlich.com/blog/2004/10/24/the-animal-who-tells-stories/comment-page-1/#comment-1755 Eric Nehrlich, Unrepentant Generalist || Ultimate culture || May || 2006 Sun, 07 May 2006 23:22:28 +0000 /?p=115#comment-1755 [...] The thing that interests me is that ultimate culture here is exactly the same as in the Bay Area. It’s the same terminology, the same phrases, even the same laid-back welcoming friendly folks. The heckling from the sidelines made me feel right at home: “Lay it!!” (as somebody didn’t dive for a catch), and the ubiquitous “Hammer or you’re nothing!” It’s all different people than the ones I played with in SF, but yet they’re all the same. There’s something deep or clever here about the transcendence of culture over space and time; Orson Scott Card’s story The Originist makes a similar point when his protagonist observes that the kids singing “Ring around the Rosy” are all the same kids, despite changing year after year. Card puts the emphasis on story telling as the separating factor, which I sometimes agree with. But it’s more than that. [...] [...] The thing that interests me is that ultimate culture here is exactly the same as in the Bay Area. It’s the same terminology, the same phrases, even the same laid-back welcoming friendly folks. The heckling from the sidelines made me feel right at home: “Lay it!!” (as somebody didn’t dive for a catch), and the ubiquitous “Hammer or you’re nothing!” It’s all different people than the ones I played with in SF, but yet they’re all the same. There’s something deep or clever here about the transcendence of culture over space and time; Orson Scott Card’s story The Originist makes a similar point when his protagonist observes that the kids singing “Ring around the Rosy” are all the same kids, despite changing year after year. Card puts the emphasis on story telling as the separating factor, which I sometimes agree with. But it’s more than that. [...]

]]> http://www.nehrlich.com/blog/2004/10/24/the-animal-who-tells-stories/comment-page-1/#comment-1554 Eric Nehrlich, Unrepentant Generalist || Goals in life || April || 2006 Mon, 03 Apr 2006 13:34:13 +0000 /?p=115#comment-1554 [...] But that’s not the only possible goal in life, of course. A while ago, I’d speculated that the goal in life was to collect as many interesting stories as possible. Stories are what bind people together, so having more stories means more ways to connect. And who doesn’t like hanging out with people who have interesting stories to tell? [...] [...] But that’s not the only possible goal in life, of course. A while ago, I’d speculated that the goal in life was to collect as many interesting stories as possible. Stories are what bind people together, so having more stories means more ways to connect. And who doesn’t like hanging out with people who have interesting stories to tell? [...]

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